


All I Do Is Dream

by Frauggie



Category: Free!
Genre: Dreams, Gen, Haru - Freeform, M/M, Metaphors, Rin - Freeform, Rin/Haru - Freeform, honestly ask me what this is about, there's far too many thoughts in my head, warning: attempt at artsy writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-05 15:29:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18831463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frauggie/pseuds/Frauggie
Summary: He had no idea how long he sat there, lingering in his own thoughts, but it apparently was enough. Because he knew that all he did was dream, and yet his dreams had gone nowhere before, so why should he bother? What was he expecting from a mere dream?





	All I Do Is Dream

**Author's Note:**

> A bit older, but thank you to a lovely RInHaru artist who was kinder than she should have been, and to my favorite waifu who definitely helped me out at a time I needed it most and still does.

_ All I do is dream. _ The thought formulated, echoing in his head as he stared out the window into the rain filled sky crowding over in clouds. The thought was right, and that really was all he did recently - work and dream and now one of those was coming to an end. His eyelids were growing heavy, and he was slowly falling asleep at the table in which he sat. 

The kotatsu he was using had been in his family’s possession for years, since the days he’d lived with his grandmother and though it didn’t work every once in a while without a good hard slap to the side, he couldn’t bring himself to get rid of it. But it was the only thing that held up as everything else in life crashed down around him like the rain that was sleeting off the roof. He could see it coming down in waterfalls to meet the pavement before beginning the long journey back to the ocean. He supposed that’s where this all began, in a dream of the ocean and one strange pair of bright crimson eyes. 

_ All I do is dream… dream of you. _

But there had never been anything to suggest just who those might belong to, and Haru had never seen anyone come close to that. The most he’d seen was some boy with blonde hair and startling pink eyes, and despite the boy being less annoying than he seemed at first they weren’t the same eyes. In the end, the boy had helped him a little, gave him ideas for years, and allowed him to use connections to get the job that he had now.   
  
Or  _ did _ have.   
  
That’s right, a month ago he’d lost his job and it wasn’t through any fault of his own. Sure he’d been a bit more careless and lazy and maybe even complacent. However the people there were friendly enough, left him alone enough, and when he wanted to take his breaks watching the coastline feeding the stray cats in the back, no one said anything against it. Not really, at least. He hadn’t exactly been happy though - because who really could be when he was barely making it to work and back and finding a place for his grandmother to rest with what little he had saved? But with all that was going on there wasn’t much time to really sit and think about himself. 

He wondered when his life had changed to surviving, rather than living.   
  
Sometimes he imagined, much like he was doing now, what his life would have been like if things had been different. Maybe instead of not paying attention in Japanese literature he’d have gone on to college, maybe studied under a professor there, perhaps even owned his own little sanctuary where he would let people read books and he’d sketch them as if they were their favorite character. The more books they read, the more he’d sketch them, placing the best ones in their hands and the rest on his walls. That was one idea, and while it appealed to him in some ways, there were other ways that he knew it just wouldn’t happen. Ways he knew that it just wasn’t him, even if a part of him really wanted to be there, in that lifetime, doing those things.    
  
But what then? He was stuck in limbo now; stuck where his other skills had taken him to the cafe, the small little shop he could use those culinary arts he never formally learned, and yet all he was doing now was sitting under his kotatsu, watching his reflection in the rain filled window. Some job. No, really it was some career, burned right down when the cafe  _ had _ to make layoffs, and they’d explained to him it wasn’t any hard feelings but rather hard times. 

He wasn’t sure how much he believed them, but he’d found out through his blonde pink eyed friend later that the managers couldn’t wait to get rid of him, and had told the rest of the staff he’d quit on his own and left of his own accord.  _ What a way to burn bridges _ , he thought, and it really wasn’t any of his doing.  _ They were jealous of your skill, _ he’d been told, despite the fact he didn’t have any skill to be jealous of. To the blonde’s credit he was trying to help, trying to talk with some of the other cafes or restaurants nearby, but none of them really needed help, or what they served wasn’t even something remotely close to what he wanted to even cook, and none of it excited him. Not really. Every time there was a prospect, maybe he’d make that train journey to go talk to the manager of the restaurant, only to find out they found someone more qualified, someone more eager, and someone that was more desperate for the job. 

But wasn’t he desperate too?

As the rain drew heavier, coming down in buckets at a time he drew in on himself more, letting the swirling anxiety inside himself pile up. He was here, waiting at what little he could call home before going to yet another cafe, for yet another manager to get ready to talk to him, and  _ all he wanted to do was dream. _

 

Things were different in his dreams. Things were far less complicated, far less emotional, and far less stressed. Things were simple, easy, and perfect, but things like that didn’t tend to involve other people save for one. Maybe that was why he was so keen on dreaming - the one possibility that he had, the one pair of eyes he wanted to see he only could in his dreams. 

Glancing down at the paper in front of him, he started realizing that was precisely what he was drawing. Those eyes over and over again, and he decided to indulge this once. He decided to let his mind wander, and imagine the face that would go with those eyes. What kind of lips, nose, eyebrows would that face have? Would it have high contoured cheekbones and a straight yet dangerously sharp jawline? Because those eyes were dangerous and risky in themselves. At some point they were kind, curious, and sparkling, but somewhere down the road they’d turned hard, anxious, and tear-filled, never fully setting their sights on him. Not until recently, when they seemed to be seeing right through him, and they seemed to pinpoint just where he was, at the most inopportune time. When he didn’t feel like himself.

Was he just imagining it like he imagined everything else? Perhaps.

He saw those eyes when he was closing up the register at the cafe on his last day. He saw those eyes across the street, or behind a pole when he was walking up the steps to his home for the third time that day. He’d seen those eyes when he closed his own, behind his own eyelids as he laid in bed, trying to fall asleep in the weeks past. But there was one more instance, one more place he saw those eyes. They were right before him now, staring back at him from the rain-filled street. They were all real then, all those sightings of crimson eyes brimming with a sparkle, but this was different somehow, like they held a raging fire that was far more complex, and this time they weren’t just eyes. There was a person they belonged to, someone that was standing outside the window he was looking out of and peering in, someone that was coming closer and closer with every passing beat of his heart.

They were now widening, locking with his own, and this time he knew they were real. They weren’t just the imagined eyes from his dreams and not just the sketch he’d had in front of him that looked like the man he’d seen right outside the window now. They weren’t- 

As he glanced back to the window after confirming that his sketch really did look the same, they were gone. They were replaced then, by the buckets of rain that were slowly turning into sheets of water. Had those eyes looked waterlogged to him? He hadn’t paid much attention to the man behind the eyes, and he suddenly found his chest aching as disappointment flooded through it.

They were gone just as quickly as they had come, and he suddenly felt like all the chances he had in the world were now gone. He’d hit his one climax; something that all his dreams were leading up to was now past, and he hadn't taken the chance. He hadn’t taken it when those eyes had come into the cafe. He hadn’t taken it when those eyes had passed him on the street. He hadn’t taken the risk when those eyes peered into his from the other side of the pool, and now those eyes were gone forever.

All his dreams. Pointless.

The crushing weight pouring over him was too much to bear, making his own eyes sting as he couldn’t remove his gaze from the window, hoping against all hope those eyes would be back. Hoping that he hadn’t lost his chance entirely, that he had the ability to see them one more time. But what would he do then? Stay in this little cocoon of familiarity here? Underneath this rickety old kotatsu that his grandmother had made sure he knew how to use? No, that itch was there, the itch to be more. The itch to do something, to go get what he wanted; to go get those eyes, those sparks of crimson that held such fire, such life, and so many answers to what he’d been seeking all along. But they weren’t coming back. He’d lost sight of them, yet again, and this time he knew there was no going back. He hadn’t taken action, he hadn’t done anything of significance, hadn’t… gone out to meet those eyes. None of those times they had presented themselves, not a single one of those opportunities.

He’d just passed them by, like they were any other pair of eyes on the street.

Immediately, he stood up from the kotatsu, nearly tipping it and tripping over the broken thing instead, kicking up one of the pillows behind him as he raced towards the door, opening it only to hear the sound of a doorbell that sounded both far off in the distance and right up close next to him, seeing nothing but those eyes staring right back at him, widening with surprise. 

“Oh! Someone is- I mean, I was about to ring- I guess I did ring already…” as the owner of those eyes trailed off, his cheeks flushing pink as one hand came up to rub at the back of his neck and finally he looked up, once more giving a spectacular view of those crimson eyes. This time though, they were better. They were more real, had more fire, were more lively, and far deeper than the eyes he’d seen previously. How could he have missed the massive beauty of them before? How could he have let just the ghost of them wander into his mind here or there? Why hadn’t he let those eyes consume everything he was?

“Err… hello? You there?” Shifting from one foot to the other, the owner of those eyes bit his lip, noticeably pointy teeth poking right into the soft, reddish chapped-looking skin there, stirring something deep within him. That itch, and he knew this time he had to listen to it.

Upon closer inspection the guy was thoroughly soaked through, his clothes and jacket sopping wet and stuck to his skin, hiding what looked to be a muscular but slightly lean build underneath. There was a necklace around that neck, half buried in a sharp collarbone under that black hoodie that wasn’t zipped up all the way despite the rain, though he couldn’t tell just what was dangling from it. Glancing down though, jeans thoroughly clung to muscular legs, curvy calves, and sneakers that looked barely worn poked out underneath. The guy had red hair nearly as bright and shining as those eyes, long and plastered about his face and cheeks, dripping with rainwater. He’d clearly hadn’t had an umbrella and needed a place to take shelter. 

“Get in.” That was all it took though, before those crimson eyes stepped right into the light of his home and widened, not stopping as they moved closer and closer towards him with something he didn’t quite recognize. No, he’d be lying to himself if he didn’t recognize the realization there, it was just far too much to hope for. Would the universe really have done this? Made him lose his job, just to be right here, in the right place for this guy to hit up his doorstep in the middle of a weekday?

“There’s something… about you. Familiar,” the guy starts, stepping even more close, right into his space and he couldn’t help but think he should lean back, though he didn’t. Those eyes were locking him in and drawing him closer, the two of them together, even as he could hear the door shut behind the guy. Then he spoke the first words that would change his world forever more after that, the words that proved that when one door closed, another opened.

“Your eyes. I’ve seen them before, in my dreams. Do I know you from somewhere?” He was close, too close, and yet not quite close enough.

“Where would you have met me?” he asked, unsure why his own voice wasn’t as steady as he would have liked it to be.

“I dunno, around town, the coffee shop I just visited. I’m from here, you know. And you obviously live here, and have for a while,” the owner started, looking about the entryway. Disappointment at not having those eyes on him once more settled into his very bones because he wanted them back on him. “But I know your eyes, yet I could have sworn I’ve only seen them in a dream so where could I have-”

 

“All I do is dream.”

 

And with that, those crimson gold flecked beautiful eyes did flick right back to meet his own, and sparkled in a way they never had before. He found he wanted to swim in them, to swim forever and ever and never let them out of his sight again.

“I like dreams,” the owner of those eyes said, voice smooth as silk and brimming over in confidence. “Share one with me.”

He agreed. Because all he wanted to do was dream.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all - 
> 
> I know it's been a while since I posted anything, and this for sure doesn't make it up but I've had quite a few large life events happen in the past few years. No, I haven't forgotten about any of my fics, and I am actually starting to work on Life Isn't Free a bit more so I can possibly continue that in the coming months, though chapters will be hella slow. Thank you to everyone that's given me supportive comments, you're all wonderful and if you've stuck with me this long, you deserve some rewards^^.
> 
> This piece is a bit artsy, but I needed to get something out about what I was feeling at the time. I hope you all can relate a bit, or just enjoy!
> 
> \- Frauggie


End file.
